Dreams, Urim, and Prophets (1)
The world of the uncanny looks, at a glance, as though it has nothing to do with theory or with systems. Even so, there are criteria by which such beings can be sorted, however roughly.
Some among them, for instance, never pass through a biological birth, nor do they spring from any other material thing. They are born out of empty air—out of the collective unconscious, complete aggregates of thought formed from faith and from every manner of ideology. The heading under which they are filed is the spiritual body.
Demons are one of the representative tribes of that order, and so they share a great many of a spiritual body's traits. It is not that a body exists and a soul later comes to dwell in it. Their existence is established first, and the flesh is only a shell donned afterward, so that they might reach into the material world and meddle with it.
"So... um. It isn't actually that serious, then? Even if Lord Marbas's body has turned into a woman's..."
Having parted from Kuroyuki and Marbas and stepped out of the café, Ninomae listened to the account of demons and put the question with a distinctly unconvinced look. If the flesh was nothing but a shell, then surely it was no great matter even if its sex were turned inside out. The guess was at least half wishful thinking. Seen that way, Marbas's change could be written off as something merely shameful—being forced into women's clothing against his will.
"Eh? I'm afraid not."
That hope was shattered on the spot by the very one who had just offered the explanation: Philotanuss, a local, more or less, of the demonic realm.
"A demon's essence is less material than it is mental, spiritual, and conceptual. Were one firmly rooted in the flesh, then whether one kept one's peanuts or had them plucked would scarcely touch the essence at all."
"P-peanuts...? No, more importantly—you're saying that because Lord Marbas is a spiritual body, this struck at his essence?"
"Mm! Something of the sort."
Ninomae's pupils rolled, slowly, from left to right.
"Uh..."
So this is serious, isn't it? The question never quite made it past her throat, but her face was asking it plainly enough.
"Marbas was originally a male demon in the shape of a lion. Turn that inside out, and conceptually one can hardly even call it the same being."
Han Seoyeon, walking at Ninomae's side, slipped into the conversation with the addendum.
"Memory, personality, values—all of them identical. And yet from a demonic point of view, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say he was killed."
"Huh...?"
"To put it in terms a human might grasp, it is rather like killing a person, taking out the brain, and transplanting it into another body. Whether one calls that death or survival is a difference of doctrine and philosophy."
Ninomae's expression darkened further. With a stiff, creaking turn of her neck, she looked to Philotanuss.
"W-weren't the two of you on good terms...?"
"Even the closest of friends come to blows when their politics differ, do they not?"
And you'd kill a friend over that? Horror filled Ninomae's eyes. Philotanuss only grinned.
"Lady Ninomae. Say what you will of me—I am a demon, am I not? Would I hesitate at a little wickedness?"
Their values were simply different. The answer was so exasperating it circled all the way around into pride, and Ninomae felt the gulf of it down to the bone. Their first meeting had been cordial enough that she had let her guard down without thinking; now she was certain a demon was never something to take lightly.
"That aside, I never imagined I would see a demon wearing Anathema merchandise."
Sensing the tension, perhaps, Han Seoyeon cleared her throat and turned the talk another way.
"Nor did I expect to fall in quite so completely. Who would have thought a gold mine this fresh was still sitting here, perfectly intact?"
At her words Philotanuss's eyes lit, and he flung both arms wide in a grand, theatrical sweep.
"A gold mine?"
Ninomae tilted her head. She had, it was true, signed a contract offering up a portion of the faith she earned through her streams, but even so.
"I don't exactly have a world-class Etube following. Is it really worth speaking of me like that?"
Several hundred thousand subscribers. By any measure a resounding success for an Etuber, the highest count in the second generation, and Mary's channel had even climbed to a level that could stand beside the first-generation seniors who had started nearly two years ahead of her. Ask whether she ranked among the very best in Japan, though, and one would have to admit she still fell well short. The genuine articles numbered in the millions, and step into the West and there were monsters who cleared ten million as if it were nothing.
Was a demon dreadful enough to put even a friend in the ground over a difference in taste really the sort to be this impressed? The thought came first, unbidden.
"Well. It isn't wholly wrong. The volume of faith you bring in is not monstrous in itself."
Philotanuss nodded readily enough at Mary's words.
"But for demons, quantity matters more than quality. Do you know the domain I govern, as a demon?"
"Homosexuality... right?"
Ninomae answered carefully. Marbas had said something of the sort as well, but she still wasn't certain. Honestly, the name Philotanuss sat rather far toward the obscure end of the catalogue. All she knew amounted to something like he goes around with Belial spreading homosexuality.
"Precisely so."
Fortunately, it seemed to be the answer he had wanted. Philotanuss laughed theatrically and clapped his hands.
"Which is to say—I am the demon of TeeTee!"
"E-ehh..."
The oddly cheap ring of the phrase that followed left Ninomae looking utterly lost. TeeTee was, granted, about that almost-romantic air in the first place, and steer it between women and it became the yuri trade, but... turn it over as many times as she liked, TeeTee and demon remained a profoundly ill-matched pair of words.
"And so I shall lay my bones at Anathema. Do not try to stop me."
"Then... good luck?"
"My oshi, like it or not, is Mary, of course! For the time being, Lady Ninomae's channel is the only place from which I can draw faith."
He added it with a smirk. The T-shirt, he explained, was a stand-in from the first generation, since Mary's own goods had yet to be released.
"But why Tama-senpai? Lord Marbas wearing Rin-senpai's shirt isn't strange, since she's his contractor."
With four choices available, there had to be a reason he had settled on Yugure Tama in particular. That was the thrust of the question.
"This one's name is Philotanuss. The nuptials of Sodom, and the back door of Gomorrah, are my domain."
"Uh... neh?"
"As the foremost authority in the field, I guarantee it. Lady Tama's weak-point damage multiplier is the highest in all of Anathema."
????
"Akane-chan? You don't look so good."
"No, it's just... I suddenly feel like shit."
Yugure Tama of the first generation—Akaba Akane, by her real name—waved off her childhood friend's question. Someone must be talking trash about me. Today of all days there was a class reunion, so the ones who had arrived early might well be sitting around cracking old stories open like pumpkin seeds.
"You hurting somewhere?"
"I'm obviously fine, so drop the worrying."
Charlotte—Tsunashi Tenka—looked genuinely concerned, but Akane let that slide right past her as well.
"Yeah? If Akane-chan says so, then it must be fine."
Tenka shook the worry off just as quickly and smiled.
"I'm looking forward to the reunion. Aren't you?"
"Not really. Not especially."
At the follow-up, Akane's brow furrowed. She was hardly a bright presence at the best of times, and the air around her turned sharper still.
"Tenka. What exactly is so great about this to you?"
"Why? Everyone in our class was nice. It'll be good to see them again after so long."
"You... tch. Never mind."
You don't have a clue how black those bitches are on the inside, do you? The venom rose all the way to Akane's throat, and she swallowed it back down. Untainted innocence was a virtue in its own right, and a talent. There was no need to shove the ugly truth at her and soil it.
"Honestly, I don't have any good memories of it."
Adding that much of a personal note was the best she could manage.
"You say that, and you still decided to go in the end, didn't you? Oh—is it because of Teacher Yuu?"
"Well... half of it. She was a good person, rare as that is. But if that were all, I wouldn't have come."
"Then why?"
At that, Akane let out a heavy sigh before she answered.
"Because some idiot is going to swallow a line of sweet talk and walk straight into a pyramid scheme."
"Ehh. Was there anyone that soft in the head in our class?"
"I'm talking about you. You."
?
Tenka tilted her head.
"I'm not really the type who gets fooled easily."
"...Ha. Forget it."
And just who did she think had protected her all this time? The lament slipped out with the thought—and yet, right behind it, came another. If she doesn't suspect a thing, doesn't that mean I guarded her properly? The feeling that followed was a strangely complicated one.
"It's already that time of year."
They talked of this and that, and before long the two of them had passed through the station gates. Perhaps because it was winter, the sky had gone dim by evening, and against that dark the lights blazed from every direction. Just as Tenka had said, the scene made it plain that Christmas was already close at hand.
"...So this year's ending too."
Even Akane seemed to grow a little sentimental at the sight, and the words slipped out of her almost without her meaning them to.
"Tenka, have you set your Christmas stream?"
"Huh? Not yet."
Sentiment was sentiment. They were streamers, though, and that side of things surfaced first regardless.
"Decide soon. The easiest thing is just to stream on Christmas Eve, and even if you don't, you'll still need an alibi."
Skip the stream on Christmas Eve and the talk of boyfriends was inevitable. Anathema's rules forbade dating, but if someone was truly set on hiding it, even the company had no way of finding out. So long as the possibility existed, suspicion was certain to rear its head. The god she enshrined was of exactly that persuasion, and she felt the truth of it all the more keenly. Anathema leaned quietly into a yuri image, which meant it also drew more viewers who were sensitive to precisely this sort of thing.
"What about you, Akane-chan?"
"Me? I'll probably just do a chat stream. Stick a picture of a tree up or something."
Safe, if safe was the word for it. Christmas was a holiday, yes, but Akane—Tama—gave off the strong impression of someone turning a stream on for an alibi rather than for any actual event.
"What did the others say they're doing?"
"Those Prasuraba-addicted bitches... Rin and Aki are doing a Christmas building battle on the server. Maya's busy getting ready for Comiket at the end of the year, so she's taking the stream off. Sae's running an endurance stream all the way to a game ending. Tsubasa's celebrating Christmas with a stream of transcribing the Gospels... and Serena said she found some Santa game or other."
"...Hey. Isn't there one weird thing mixed in there?"
But thinking it over again, that person had always been like that. Tenka decided not to dig any further and let it pass.
"Mary-chan... Ninomae-chan."
"She said she's just going to run through a mobile game's Christmas event story."
"Ah, the one she mentions all the time?"
So like her, Tenka thought, and smiled.
"What should I do? Maybe I should just do a chat stream too?"
"Well... if nothing else works out, come over here."
If the only aim was an alibi that one wasn't out wandering around, it didn't strictly have to be one's own stream. Akane answered without thinking very hard about it.
"Oh, really? I can come over?"
"You, Tenka. Anyone listening would think you actually ask permission every single time before you show up."
"Ahaha. I do get Grandma's permission every time, though."
"Get my permission, you damn brat."
It sounded like a scolding—since when have you ever barged in after asking?—but Tenka read the come as much as you like folded inside it, and she looked thoroughly pleased. Beaming, she closed the distance by degrees, then slipped an arm through Akane's as naturally as water finding its course.
"What the hell are you doing, creep."
"Eung."
...Well. Akane scowled at once and knocked the arm away, but.